Japan's lower house of parliament has approved a plan to use the country's space programs to meet military objectives, namely the bolstering of national defenses against the ballistic missile threat posed by North Korea. A H-2A rocket launches from the island of Tanagashima, Japan on Feb. 23, 2008 carrying a communications satellite designed to enable super high-speed data transmission. Kyodo News/AP Japan has been strengthening its military posture since the national shock that followed North Korea's test-firing of a missile over the Japanese mainland in 1998. Tokyo is also concerned that China's space program could pose a military threat.
The upper house is expected to endorse the legislation because it was sponsored by both the ruling coalition and the largest opposition party.
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The legislation would overturn the country’s decades-old policy of limiting space development to peaceful uses under the country's pacifist Constitution. The bill says space programs must "contribute to ensure peace and safety of international society, as well as the national security of our country."
Under the new law, Japan could use its satellite network and other assets for military surveillance and early-warning functions as part of the missile defense system it is building with the United States in response to the North Korean missile threat.
The legislation would also allow establishment of a special space task force led by the prime minister and the creation of the new post of space development minister.
The bill would end a ban on the military use of space that was imposed on the country's nascent space program in 1969. The current war-renouncing Constitution, drafted by Americans after World War II, also prohibits Japan from developing offensive military capability.
The Defense Agency gained full cabinet ministry status in 2007 for the first time since being established in 1954 as part of then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's strategy to end the "postwar regime" and build a new Japan.
In 2004, Japanese troops were sent to a combat zone for the first time since World War II, although the mission in Iraq was strictly humanitarian.
